Oh yeah. ElfQuest. The newest book is out, although I never would have found it, because I know ElfQuest is being published by DC Comics now, and I have been diligently looking at the new DC/Vertigo stuff in hopes of finding it, since it was supposed to be out in July. Ted happened to see it today, back in the corner with the rest of the ElfQuest stuff. Eric, the manager, whom we were speaking to, was surprised to see it there, and asked somebody else what it was doing there. She said, “Everybody who knows we carry ElfQuest knows it’s right there in that corner.”
Funny, I know they carry it and I’ve been looking diligently in the DC stuff.
Anyway, so there it is, the new ElfQuest. It looks like a comic-book-sized issue. Possibly 32 pages instead of 22, that sort of size. Not thick. Also not large; it’s comic-book sized, rather than, say, the original ElfQuest B&W comics which were magazine-sized. (Edit: apparently it’s actually 96 pages.)
And it’s hardback.
And it’s sealed in plastic.
And it costs twenty-five dollars.
Baby, the faith is not that strong. It’s been what, five years? since EQ had anything out at all, and considerably longer since they had anything good out. I carried the torch a long, long time, but the light ain’t bright enough to see my way clear to a $25 purchase of a book I can’t even flip through. I didn’t know it was coming out in hardback, and I certainly didn’t know it was going to be sealed. I was already skeptical as hell about buying it. Now? I just don’t think so.
music: Bon Jovi, Keep the Faith
I’m so tired of shelling out money for EQ stuff and getting absolute crap in return that there’s no way I’d pay to purchase something I couldn’t flip through first to be sure that I actually /want/ it and that it’s /worth/ the money they charge.